Concerning Submission

1Co 11:3  But I want you to understand that the head of every man is Christ, the head of a wife is her husband, and the head of Christ is God.

To say that chapter 11 of 1 Corinthians is interesting is to understate things for sure.  Even though there is disagreement among Christians as to all its applications, it contains some very important principles that we need if we are to live godly in Christ Jesus in this present age and because many ignore such passages we sometimes find our churches suffering because of it.  While I might blog on some other parts of it at another time, today I wanted to write something about vs. 3.

Of course here Paul is setting up what he is going to teach about male headship and female submission.  And basically his point in vs. 3 is that we are all in submission to someone and so no one and especially women in the church and wives with their husbands should get upset about being in submission because we all, men and women, are in submission to someone.  There is a created order to the universe and this is the reality in which we live and to rebel against it will not only dishonor God but also bring unneeded problems in our lives and relationships with others.

And so he first states the obvious that every man and for that fact woman is under the authority of Christ and just as much a reality every wife is under the authority of her husband but then he says something extremely profound that when grasped should knock any thoughts of rebellion right out of us.

He tells us that even among the Godhead there is order and headship and submission.  Christ the Son, the second person of the Godhead submits himself to the direction of the Father.  Now there is some debate among Christians as to whether the Son has always been in submission or primarily this happened when he became incarnate for the purposes of redemption.  On the one hand it doesn’t change Paul’s point.  But I have had to wrestle with this of late and while I think that perhaps both sides try to explain too precisely what is not revealed as clearly as we would like, yet I think a better case can be made that this headship and submission among the Godhead is eternal in nature. 

One way to illustrate this is when it comes to who was going to come to earth to die for our sins.  If we think of the Godhead as totally equal in authority with no Father, Son, Holy Spirit relationship then it would seem to me that they would have to cast lots or do “rock, paper, scissors” to decide who would take on what roles.  But of course I think it more reasonable to assume that this relationship of all things preceding from the Father and the Son doing whatever pleases the Father including revealing him and glorifying him in all things was what has been going on for eternity.  Now this gives me all kinds of questions but let’s face it, eternity future is going to be where such questions get answered.

Having said all that though, the profundity of the verse leaves us perfectly willing to assume our roles in husband and wife relations once we realize that we are actually living out the very nature of God himself.  So for a woman to rebel or even be discontent in her role of a submissive wife is actually disparaging the very nature of God.  In essence you are saying by wanting the role of your husband that Christ shouldn’t be who he is but should demand to be as much the head as the Father; or that somehow he is inferior to the Father which the Bible makes very clear is not the case.  One huge problem with this is that this is exactly the thought pattern of Satan when he was unwilling to assume the position that God gave him but wanted instead to sit in the highest throne.  It was not given to him and no creature deserves it.  Our contentment and fulfillment lies in accepting that place God has put us and being faithful to honor him in all things; not to think we deserve something more.  In this we actually are demonstrating the very nature of God. 

Once we come to grips with vs. 3 the rest of this should become a matter of what can I do to fulfill my role as man or woman with no thoughts of assuming the role or the appearance of the opposite sex.

Allow Me a Rare Moment of Speculation and Philosophizing

Mat 25:21  His master said to him, 'Well done, good and faithful servant. You have been faithful over a little; I will set you over much. Enter into the joy of your master.'

I have been thinking of late about what eternity will be like.  Of course, we are told so little that such thoughts can be a somewhat frustrating pursuit.  One of the ways that I think it can be described is the absence of frustration which is a big consequence of the Fall.  There are a couple of ways we can see this.

One is contentment.  While we are commanded to be content in this world we know also that to a degree that is impossible.  Much like we are told be perfect yet it is more of a pursuit than a full reality.  Hopefully as we grow in grace we are becoming more content with what God has given us in this life but with sin all around us and within us perfect contentment eludes us like trying to find the end of a rainbow.  Paul had no doubt learned to be content with such things as he had but with his remaining sin and with the struggle to help the saints grow in the Lord and with the pain and sickness that he had to deal with and the loss of loved ones to death and so on, it is just not possible to be perfectly content in this world.

In eternity, though, this will not be the case.  Every need will be met and I suppose that speaking of needs will no longer be necessary.  We won’t have needs that need to be met.  Existence will be continuous fulfillment; I like to use the word bliss, continuous bliss.  In Heaven we can finally say with accuracy, “I just can’t be happier than I am right now!”  We will be in the presence of God who is the source of all life, joy and blessing and there just will never be a moment in which we will want something that we aren’t experiencing.  It is mind boggling to say the least.  We don’t know very much about eternity and what we will be doing and experiencing but we know that we can never get bored or tired gazing upon the Lord of Glory.

The other thing I think of when I think of eternity, and it is connected with the contentment, is anticipation.  It seems to me that one of the fundamental experiences and joys of life is anticipation.  In one sense that is what keeps us going on from day to day; anticipating plans, dreams, goals, experiences and the like.  There is always a reason to get up in the morning, a day of work to look forward to, a relationship to enjoy, something to accomplish.  If we stop and think about it, it seems that it plays a part in just about anything we are involved with. 

But as with contentment, anticipation in this life seldom lives up to the hype.  How many times has the anticipation of something turned out to be a better experience than the thing we looked forward to?  Temporal things just can’t satisfy us in any meaningful way.  The days leading up to Christmas morning or your birthday party often are more fun than when it is all over and we are off to anticipating the next “thing”.  Even our relationships with godly loved ones fall short of what we thought they would be to varying degrees (just ask my wife!).  The reason is obvious everything on this side of eternity is tainted with sin and maybe better said it is soaked with sin through and through.

Now the question I wonder about is whether there will be anticipation in eternity.  My first thought was of course there won’t be because if we are anticipating something then it means that we don’t have everything we want and couldn’t be happy or content.  But then I wondered if perhaps we were made that way by God as part of the human experience.  So while anticipation is often frustrated by unrealized goals, yet is looking forward to the next wonderful thing a good thing that in itself if part of being a joyful human being? 

In other words could eternity be one continuous experience of anticipating all that God has for us and at the same time experiencing them to utter joy and amazement and being completely satisfied?  Could it be everything we reach for in this life only without the disappointments?  Is fully realized anticipation the epitome of the human experience and that which only God can give us? 

The reason I wonder if this is perhaps at least part of it all is because I am the world’s worst for moving from one hobby, experience, food to another always looking for the next thing.  (Well, I might not be the world’s worse but I am right up there)  I remember telling my children many times that variety is the spice of life.  I think we are all wired like this to different degrees and so I wonder if we will spend eternity all giddy with excitement over all the things that the Lord is revealing to us of his glory?  Is it possible to be content without something to anticipate?

Well, I guess it is all musings and speculations until then but if anyone has something else to throw into the mix please feel free to make a comment; even if it is to show me why I am completely off base!  I am not one to speculate about the abstract too often but I guess it is a good exercise from time to time and perhaps better left to minds other than mine.

The Parable of the Good Shepherd

Luk 15:4  "What man of you, having a hundred sheep, if he has lost one of them, does not leave the ninety-nine in the open country, and go after the one that is lost, until he finds it? Luk 15:5  And when he has found it, he lays it on his shoulders, rejoicing. Luk 15:6  And when he comes home, he calls together his friends and his neighbors, saying to them, 'Rejoice with me, for I have found my sheep that was lost.' Luk 15:7  Just so, I tell you, there will be more joy in heaven over one sinner who repents than over ninety-nine righteous persons who need no repentance.

The other day someone asked me about this parable and in particular who the Pharisees were in the parable.  As always we have to make sure we know why Jesus gives the parable before we try to worry about the details.  Jesus gives all three of these parables in response to the Pharisee’s offense that he was spending time with “sinners”.  Actually I don’t think the Pharisees are mentioned at all in the first two parables, at least not directly.  The second one is very similar to the first with the woman looking for her lost coin and the third is often termed the “Prodigal Son” but actually it is more about the older son.  This is where the Pharisees are clearly mentioned.

Often the third parable is used mostly to teach of the conversion of the prodigal and there is something to be said for that.  Clearly the first two show things from God’s point of view by showing the love of God in seeking out the lost while the third is more from our point of view as we see the thought process of the prodigal.  But these parables aren’t concerned so much with the conversion experience as with what our attitude should be towards the lost.

Jesus’s point in the parables is to expose the unloving spirit of the Pharisees who were to some degree the shepherds of Israel.  He contrasts himself with them as the Good Shepherd who will spare no expense to find those who are truly lost.  The Pharisees are unworthy shepherds because they don’t care for lost souls only that everyone gives them the glory they believe they deserved.  They want to be served and not to serve. 

In all three parables the main point is the rejoicing over a sinner who is found or returns to God.  To God and all of heaven there is great joy when sinners repent but to these Pharisees that is of little consequence.  They don’t care for the souls of men but for their own interests.

We can find application in that we must be careful that our Christianity doesn’t become so centered around everyone getting their theology right and everyone looking just like us that we forget what is of paramount importance.  We are to minister to people; to call them back to God and to encourage each other to follow the Good Shepherd.  Biblical, God-centered theology is extremely necessary but it is to get us to be like Christ and to be able to glorify the Father as he did.  It isn’t to make us good little theologians so that we can correct everyone else. 

In all three parables there is great joy over people who get right with God and by the third parable Jesus makes it clear that these Pharisees are like the older son who has made religion about himself and getting the recognition he deserves.  Isn’t that amazing; can we not identify with this?  God has saved us by his grace and brought unworthy sinners into fellowship with himself that we might know him and enjoy him forever and we turn around and try to impress him and others with how good we are so we can receive the praise of others.  Or we lay out our list of what Christianity should look like and frown on those who don’t look like us.  

But it is all about returning to God and serving him and a good shepherd and a loving saint is the one who encourages this in others with no thought of self.

Who Is In Charge Anyway?

Dan 4:34  At the end of the days I, Nebuchadnezzar, lifted my eyes to heaven, and my reason returned to me, and I blessed the Most High, and praised and honored him who lives forever, for his dominion is an everlasting dominion, and his kingdom endures from generation to generation; Dan 4:35  all the inhabitants of the earth are accounted as nothing, and he does according to his will among the host of heaven and among the inhabitants of the earth; and none can stay his hand or say to him, "What have you done?"

I have been doing some studying on Molinism.  It is a theological system that was developed by a Jesuit priest Luis de Molina in the 1500s to combat the doctrine of the Reformers concerning the sovereignty of God in salvation.  That right there should be enough for us to dismiss it out of hand but it is in vogue among some Arminian evangelicals and evidently some so called Calvinist are said to embrace it so it would be good for us to understand it and why it is an unbiblical attack on the very person of God.  It takes some time to really get one’s mind around what it teaches and I am no expert by any means but let me try to sum it up briefly and give just a few reasons why it fails.

It states that not only does God know all that happens and all that will happen but that he knows all that could happen by men who are considered to be free moral agents.  In other words God knows all the choices free men will make and so he created a world that would lead to the best possible outcome based on the choices we make.  Molina developed this to try to keep man’s free will intact even while God is sovereign.  The problems are legion if one takes the Bible as God’s Word and the final truth. 

The first obvious problem is that it assumes that God’s foreknowledge of all things that will happen is outside of his eternal decrees.  That he is like some seer staring into a crystal ball and sees what we will do.  But the Bible teaches that God knows the future because he has declared the beginning from the end.  The future is not independent from him; it isn’t something that he knows about, it is what he has planned and only what he has planned. 

Secondly this robs God of his sovereignty and makes man’s free will ultimately what determines the course of history and human existence.  Based on what we would do God’s options are limited in what he can do with us; he only has so many options.

But there are two other things to consider that make the whole system collapse  under its own weight; instead of defending and support man’s free will, this system actually ends up denying the very thing it is trying to keep intact.  The idea is that God knows what free men will do under any and all circumstances.  So he manipulates us and our environment and circumstances to get everything to his desired end.  But if we will always choose to act a certain way under the same circumstances then we really have no option to change our minds.  We are like Pavlov’s dogs that will always salivate when they think food is coming.  In other words, our will is not free to choose if it must always act in a definite fashion under the same circumstances.  If God knows what we will do before we do it then we really aren’t free to choose one thing or another; something else has already determined it.

But even worse than this is what seems to me to be something completely missed by those who believe this.  If each one of us is completely free to do whatever we want but God knows what we will do in any situation; what makes us the people we are?  If God knows that Nathan Ruble will always lose his temper when faced with certain things then not only am I not truly free in will but my next question is who make me to be like I am; to think like I do?  Why are we like we are so that we do what we do?  Who gave us our personalities and our likes and dislikes, etc.  We can say it is in our genes but who gave us our genes?

What I am saying is that at the end of the day the Molinist must admit that God has determined all things from the beginning because he made us what we are.  We can talk all we want to about man’s free will but who gave us a will and who gave us our personalities.  There is only one answer to that and it is that Person who has necessarily determined all that will be and exactly how it will all turn out.  And yet he did so keeping our responsibility intact for any decisions we make. 

Can anyone explain how the sovereignty of God and the responsibility of man work?  I don’t think so but I do know what the Bible teaches about it and our responsibility is to believe it and not try to philosophize our way out of it.  “Let God be true though every one were a liar”, Rom. 3:4

How Big is Your God?

1Co 10:7 Do not be idolaters as some of them were; as it is written, "The people sat down to eat and drink and rose up to play." 

In the above text Paul warns Christians not to fall into some of the sins that Israel committed while in the wilderness.  They must be sins that Christians can commit which makes us take a look at the first one listed which is idolatry.  No real saint would give a second look at a stone or wooden idol and actually bow down and worship it but giving our love, attention and energy in living for things alongside of Christ is an easy trap to fall into.  As we consider what led Israel to idolatry in Exodus 32 we see that this is something we very easily commit.  Much of this has everything to do with how big our God is.

Exo 32:1 When the people saw that Moses delayed to come down from the mountain, the people gathered themselves together to Aaron and said to him, "Up, make us gods who shall go before us. As for this Moses, the man who brought us up out of the land of Egypt, we do not know what has become of him."… Exo 32:4  And he received the gold from their hand and fashioned it with a graving tool and made a golden calf. And they said, "These are your gods, O Israel, who brought you up out of the land of Egypt!" 

Perhaps the key word in the Exodus passage is in verse 1, “delayed”.  We know that the calf Aaron made was not supposed to be an entirely different god than Yahweh but one that represented him as vs. 4 says, “These are your gods, O Israel, who brought you up out of the land of Egypt”.   What was their great sin that led them to fashion this “new and improved” god?  They didn’t like waiting and wondering; living by faith was hard.  Sitting there for forty days not knowing what was happening with Moses on the mountain wasn’t sitting well with them.  They wanted a God they could control, who worked on their timetable, according to their agenda. 

Of course the problem with this god is that while he might let you do whatever you want to do, he isn’t a god worth our worship, adoration, obedience, much less our time.  This is not a god who is in control of things and so it is difficult to spend much time praying to him since one has little confidence that a god you can control actually controls the events of your life.  We can’t have it both ways can we?

I would think this explains Numbers 14 which is probably what Paul is referring to in 1 Cor. 10:10 when he says not to grumble as Israel did.  Here the ten spies came back and described the people of Canaan as giants too big to overcome.  Why did the people believe the ten spies and not the other two?  Because they still thought of the true God as a sweet, little, golden calf.  Next to these giants he didn’t look so big.  Here is what they said to Moses, Num 14:2 And all the people of Israel grumbled against Moses and Aaron. The whole congregation said to them, "Would that we had died in the land of Egypt! Or would that we had died in this wilderness! Num 14:3 Why is the LORD bringing us into this land, to fall by the sword? Our wives and our little ones will become a prey. Would it not be better for us to go back to Egypt?"

Their idolatry caused them to have little to no faith in the Lord and so God gives them their wish and he marches them out into the wilderness and lets them die there.  I think if you follow Paul’s line of reasoning in 1 Cor. 9-10 he is saying that if we fall into this type of idolatry we will be about as useless to the cause of Christ as those Israelites.  

I once was told that I preach the sovereignty of God too much.  I would vigorously argue that statement on any level but surely one big problem the church has today is that many of the pulpits proclaim a God who is not big enough, holy enough, and sovereign enough.  There are few things that are more practical and important for us than to have God exalted in our eyes.  A big God gives big faith, but I would have a hard time trusting a little God.  A big God warrants service and worship.  A little God makes us look to ourselves just like those Israelites did and all that does is incur the wrath of the Lord.

The Wisest Statement Ever Spoken?

Isa 2:22  Stop regarding man in whose nostrils is breath, for of what account is he?

Isaiah is one of the most sarcastic books in the Bible.  Not that there is all that much sarcasm in the Bible but when we do find it, it seems it is usually the Lord speaking to man.  I think we have a little bit here.  To get the full force of the above verse I think it is good to see that he is referring to idolatry.  One of the themes of Isaiah is God condemning the rampant idolatry in the nation of Israel and sometimes the Lord reminds them how silly idolatry is.  We might say he speaks down to us as only he can.  Chapter 44 is probably my favorite example:

Isa 44:14  He cuts down cedars, or he chooses a cypress tree or an oak and lets it grow strong among the trees of the forest. He plants a cedar and the rain nourishes it.  Isa 44:15  Then it becomes fuel for a man. He takes a part of it and warms himself; he kindles a fire and bakes bread. Also he makes a god and worships it; he makes it an idol and falls down before it.  Isa 44:16  Half of it he burns in the fire. Over the half he eats meat; he roasts it and is satisfied. Also he warms himself and says, "Aha, I am warm, I have seen the fire!"  Isa 44:17  And the rest of it he makes into a god, his idol, and falls down to it and worships it. He prays to it and says, "Deliver me, for you are my god!"

It oozes sarcasm.  Here is a seemingly intelligent man who cuts down a tree and makes a fire to warm himself out of some of the wood, cooks some food and while he is eating he sees the stump just lying there unused and says, “Humm, I think I’ll make a god out of that stump so it won’t go to waste then I can fall down on my knees and worship it!”  In any other setting it would be funny, but of course it is anything but funny because it has eternal consequences.  The verses right after this get deadly serious when the Lord tells us that the reason one worships idols is because they are blind, Isa 44:19  No one considers, nor is there knowledge or discernment to say, "Half of it I burned in the fire; I also baked bread on its coals; I roasted meat and have eaten. And shall I make the rest of it an abomination? Shall I fall down before a block of wood?"   It isn’t that he isn’t intelligent; it is because he has spiritual blindness because of his fallen nature. 

The previous verse says that this blindness remains because the Lord won’t take it away, Isa 44:18  They know not, nor do they discern, for he has shut their eyes, so that they cannot see, and their hearts, so that they cannot understand.  And then finally he says that no man is able on his own to decide to not be blind and to believe the truth, Isa 44:20  He feeds on ashes; a deluded heart has led him astray, and he cannot deliver himself or say, "Is there not a lie in my right hand?"  It seems so simple to realize that something we make can’t possibly be worthy of our trust and love but until the Lord opens our hearts this is the plight of all the lost.  The NT hammers this out and we will leave it there.

The first verse I quoted above, 2:22, I believe is a direct reference to idolatry because all idolatry ultimately is worshiping yourself rather than the true God.  Whether it is a piece of rock or block of wood or your job or your family or whether the satisfaction in life is what you have accomplished with your hands; it is all the same.  Chapter 44 makes it very clear that we either bow to the Lord or we turn our love to whatever we have done.  Even if someone worships the Moon, his religion is a result of his rational (or better, irrational) thought; he had decided the Moon can somehow help him. 

Okay, so how does all this apply to Isa 2:22  Stop regarding man in whose nostrils is breath, for of what account is he?   Here is one of the most profound statements in all of Scripture.  The Lord, I think somewhat sarcastically, tells us that it is foolish to regard, to put before the Lord, one of his creatures that breathes!  God created all things, he is eternal and self-sustaining.  He doesn’t have to breathe because he does not need anything outside of himself.

We, on the other hand, are dependent upon the constant care of the Lord to live even a moment longer.  If we fail to get another breath we cease to live.  The Lord has made it so that we are reminded of our complete dependence on him to live.  It is by causing us to have to breathe constantly.  Every breath we take should be a continuous reminder that we are finite, needy and weak and we need the true God.  We are of no account compared to the Lord and to regard ourselves, our wants, our desires, and our glory above the One who truly deserves it is the worst kind of sin. 

The wise of our age consider the Bible to be out-of-date and ancient man to be unenlightened.  But here Isaiah says one of the wisest things ever said and the wise of this world ignore it every day the Lord gives them!

Sweet Grapes or Stink Fruit

Isa 5:1  Let me sing for my beloved my love song concerning his vineyard: My beloved had a vineyard on a very fertile hill. Isa 5:2  He dug it and cleared it of stones, and planted it with choice vines; he built a watchtower in the midst of it, and hewed out a wine vat in it; and he looked for it to yield grapes, but it yielded wild grapes. Isa 5:3  And now, O inhabitants of Jerusalem and men of Judah, judge between me and my vineyard. Isa 5:4  What more was there to do for my vineyard, that I have not done in it? When I looked for it to yield grapes, why did it yield wild grapes? Isa 5:5  And now I will tell you what I will do to my vineyard. I will remove its hedge, and it shall be devoured; I will break down its wall, and it shall be trampled down.

In the above passage the Lord is explaining to Israel why their days are numbered before they go into captivity and why he will eventually break the covenant he made with them.  Basically they have never been faithful to its conditions so a new one is needed.  Thus all the prophets look forward to the time when the Messiah would come and institute a new and better one in which he keeps all the conditions for us as well as empowers us to serve him from the heart; both of which Israel never really lived up to.

But the thing of interest in this passage is found in vs. 4.  He tells them that there was a reason he chose them from among the nations and made a covenant with them in which he revealed himself to them.  It was to get something from them which was the worship with joy, from the heart of his glorious person.  Ok, some of that is implied but it is clear that his complaint is they aren’t living up to their end of the covenant.  The “wild grapes” have been translated “stink fruit” or “poisonous berries”.  Either way they were not fulfilling their intended purpose and God finds them offensive and ready to be discarded. 

What this makes clear is that the Lord doesn’t go to all the trouble of creating this world and predetermining a plan for it which includes dying for our sins all for just the “privilege” of keeping him company forever.  Just as he had a purpose for redeeming Israel from Egypt so he has a purpose for redeeming us from sin. 

The reason this needs to be emphasized in our day is because many seem to think that all that matters is winning souls from Hell; having your sins forgiven so that once your eternity is secured you can really start to enjoy life.  We add God to our life instead of finding our life in his life.  This can be worked out in a couple of ways.  I was raised in the fundamentalist mentality that all that mattered was saving souls from Hell but very little emphasis was put on what happened after one supposedly got saved.  Since you couldn’t lose your salvation, even though you might backslide into the life you once lived, it didn’t matter since at least you were saved. 

Perhaps more prevalent today is the idea that one gets saved in order to have their best life now.  Following God’s plan for you will enable you to live up to your full potential.  Of course, this is just as man centered as the first scenario and perhaps part of what Israel was guilty of. 

What both of these doctrinal slants fail to understand is that God saves us to be conformed to the image of his dear Son not just in outward obedience but in living to glorify the Father in all things.  This is why Isaiah keeps condemning Israel for lip service and religious observances that did not arise from a heart of love towards the Lord.

God is telling Israel and it applies to us as well that he saves us that we might honor him with our lives and thoughts; that we might glorify the Lord in all that we are and do and think which is merely the first and great commandment.  The great promise of the OT was that under the new covenant God would also supply the Spiritual power to transform those in the covenant.  That is the one thing lacking under the old covenant and without it Israel didn’t serve her purpose and without the Spirit we can’t either.  

So Paul tells us that it is God who works in us both to will and to do his good pleasure.  Every true saint has the Spirit, is transformed and loves the Lord and desires to honor him in the way they live.  We need to be careful of telling someone who professes to be saved that they are saved when they clearly have no use for the things of God.  It goes against everything the Bible says about why God saves us.  We need to always make our calling and election sure.  We are to be a sweet smelling aroma to the Lord, not stink fruit.